


even stars in the skies, they're wrong

by bellawritess



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Canon verse, Comfort, Existentialism, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Melancholy, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Stargazing, but it's not. like. fluff, from the early days of the band, i guess??, it's not. angst. per se, metaphors and poetic language and whatever else, mildly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26672956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellawritess/pseuds/bellawritess
Summary: “Can I stay?” Michael whispers, and Ashton nods, hoping that Michael will understand that this is a special circumstance, thatMichaelis a special circumstance, that Ashton wouldn’t let just anyone sit under the stars with him whilst he has an existential crisis.
Relationships: Michael Clifford/Ashton Irwin
Comments: 17
Kudos: 37





	even stars in the skies, they're wrong

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a month ago, when i was feeling melancholy and a bit existential. i come back to it whenever i'm feeling melancholy, and it makes me feel a bit better. so i hope that it does something like that for you, or, at the very least, that you just enjoy it
> 
> title from don't forget where you belong by one direction
> 
> also just realized this is my second mashton angst ( well this one isn't really angst but it kind of is) in a row so do with that information what you will

Ashton’s never felt insignificant to the stars. It’s his greatest affliction.

The grass tickles the back of his neck, lying outside of Luke’s house. The other boys are inside, asleep, hopefully, but Ashton needed a moment to himself — _really_ to himself — and so here he is, prone on the front lawn. Above him, the tree branches stretch out enough to cut Ashton’s vision into fragments, so he’s staring not at one continuous sky but at puzzle pieces of starlight. It’s beautiful, in whatever way the same stars every night can somehow still seem beautiful anew, but it’s not comforting.

The other boys find it comforting to look at the stars. Michael, especially. Ashton reckons that’s because Michael feels like he’s usually seconds away from being swallowed up by the earth, and Ashton understands the panicky feeling, but looking at the stars doesn’t make him feel any better, and he can’t see how it helps Michael at all. It had been an optimistic gamble, anyway, coming out here, and Ashton had mostly done it for the fresh air. Still, the stars taunt him. _Don’t you wish you were this meaningless?_ they sneer. _Don’t you wish people would see you as something more than you are, and fall in love with a light that might already have died?_

Ashton does. He wishes he _were_ a star, and he hates that they get to twinkle to their heart’s content, and never worry about whether they’re doing the right thing, or making the right decision. Nobody knows if stars have consciousness. And if they have, and all they’ve done for eons is be stagnant and just _shine_ — well, people would still love them. That’s the point of stars, they’d say, just to be beautiful. Ashton wonders if he’d feel better if the standards were so low for him, too.

Probably not. If no one expected anything of Ashton he’d probably feel indignant. But now people are starting to expect big things from him, and he wants to shake them all by their shoulders and force them to stargaze with him right now. _That one is me,_ he’d say, pointing at random to any of the hundreds of stars visible in his line of sight. _It’s going to do whatever it wants, and you’re going to find it beautiful no matter what, because it’s a star, and that is the only opinion you need to have on stars. You won’t even know it’s died until long after you’ve stopped appreciating its light._

It’s always when he reaches this point in his imagined scenario that he thinks he should probably not board that train of thought.

The breeze does feel nice, though, and the grass isn’t itchy, just soft enough to provide a comfortable pillow underneath him. Ashton thinks he could fall asleep here, if he weren’t afraid of any number of natural disasters happening to him. It’s peaceful at this hour, just gone one in the morning, all the house lights off, no noise but the occasional bug chirping. If Ashton zones out enough, he can steady his breathing and heartbeat just enough to wonder if they’re still happening at all. If maybe he and the earth are breathing in sync, or if his heartbeat is pulsing with the whole world. It’s a nice thought, that he’s connected with nature, that they could share a heartbeat, share breaths, but it’s a fantasy, of course. He’s just a person. And nature doesn’t really breathe.

Still, lying on the grass, exhaling so lightly that he can almost pretend that he isn’t, Ashton thinks he’s exhaled some of himself out into the air above him. It’s been awhile since he’s felt light, or even slightly empty; these days he’s always stuffed to the brim with himself, and it feels like a curse, to always have _so much Ashton_ inside this flimsy, breakable kid’s body. Like trying to fit a sleeping bag back into its bag, only to find that the bag has shrunk, and there’s too much sleeping bag to fit. There’s always some odd piece of Ashton protruding from himself; he can never keep himself entirely contained, boxed in, and it frustrates him, that he has no control over what pieces of him are dangling out in the open. What, he wonders, are people seeing, that he wishes they wouldn’t see? It wouldn’t bother Ashton so terribly, having his heart on his sleeve, if he were in charge of deciding which parts of it were on display.

A creaking sound nearly pulls Ashton from his messy swimming pool of thoughts, but Ashton stubbornly stays. He’s not ready to come back into himself yet; he wants to stay here, with the extraneous essence of Ashton hovering above him, knowing that the Ashton that is currently laying on the ground isn’t all of him. And Ashton’s not sure which parts of him are still inside his body and what parts are waiting patiently to return to their overflowing container. 

It’s strange, because now he feels fairly empty, but before he’d felt near to bursting at the seams, and there doesn’t seem to be a middle ground. Either he’ll be cracking at the edges trying to keep all the shards of himself inside, like trying to fit too much shattered glass into a small box (because Ashton’s no canvas bag; he won’t mold to the shape, he’ll just puncture), or he’ll be deflating from the empty space in his lungs where there used to be pieces of Ashton that are now wafting away through the nighttime air.

Beside Ashton there are footsteps, followed by someone sitting down. If Ashton turns to look, it’ll break the spell, but he suspects he knows who it is anyway. His suspicion is confirmed when the person to his left murmurs, “Nice night.”

Ashton’s eyes flutter shut. Just the sound of Michael’s voice soothes his frayed nerves a little bit. Ashton doesn’t really want to wonder about why that is. He makes the executive decision that the part of Ashton that would want to analyze that is currently not occupying his body, and breathes out for longer than is normal, especially considering his chest is mostly just vacuum right now. “Yeah.”

“God, you’re thinking hard,” Michael breathes, as usual surprisingly astute. He shuffles down in the grass and leans back until they’re side by side. Ashton extends his left arm across the grassy lawn, and though he’s not sure whether or not it had been intended as an invitation, Michael accepts it as one. He picks up his head and drops it down on Ashton’s bicep, body curling slightly inward towards Ashton.

“Mm,” Ashton replies, because he’s actually trying to _avoid_ thinking hard, but of course he’s failing, because when you’re not supposed to think about penguins, suddenly the only thing you can think of is penguins, and whatever.

“I can guess you don’t want to talk about it,” Michael says, “but that’s not going to stop me asking.” Ashton’s lips quirk up against his will. “What’re you thinking about?”

Ashton inhales carefully, nervous that breathing in too deeply will suck the extra nebulous Ashton stuff back into his body before he’s ready. “Nothing,” he says, for something to say, even though he knows that Michael knows that that’s a cheap lie.

“Okay, don’t tell me,” Michael says, and doesn’t sound offended. He yawns. “But don’t you want to think about nothing inside?”

“No,” Ashton says quietly.

There’s a pause. Michael doesn’t move, and Ashton doesn’t open his eyes. If Michael wants to go back inside, he’s more than welcome.

Ashton finds himself hoping that Michael will stay, though. The stars do nothing for his nerves, but Michael does. Ashton doesn’t really consider himself the kind of person who needs grounding, but there’s something about Michael that does it anyway.

“Can I stay?” Michael whispers, and Ashton nods, hoping that Michael will understand that this is a special circumstance, that _Michael_ is a special circumstance, that Ashton wouldn’t let just anyone sit under the stars with him whilst he has an existential crisis.

Michael cuddles into Ashton’s side, seemingly unbothered by Ashton’s lack of reciprocation. It makes Ashton want to reciprocate, though, so he twists the angle of his arm, grasping blindly for some part of Michael that he can hold onto, just to say _I want you here, I really do_. Michael’s hand finds his in the dark, and Ashton grips it tight, lacing their fingers together like superglue.

“I could fall asleep here,” Michael mumbles, eerily echoing Ashton’s thoughts from earlier. “‘S nice. You know, I kind of felt you leave.”

Ashton hums, because he’s not quite sure what that means. Hopefully it’s an encouraging hum; he’d like to know. 

“Well, that makes it sound like we’re — spiritually bound, or something weird like that,” Michael says, in a low voice. “I just meant — maybe your footsteps woke me, or the door, but I didn’t realize that’s what woke me up. I was just suddenly awake, and the room felt — wrong. Like it was emptier.” He sighs, breath heating up Ashton’s skin through his thin t-shirt. “And it was.”

Ashton hums again, eyes still shut against the threat of opening them and realizing this is actually happening. It doesn’t feel real; it feels like a hazy dream, and Ashton knows, objectively, that it isn’t, but he thinks that if he imagines it’s a dream he’ll behave more like the Ashton he wants to be than the Ashton he is.

“You seem distressed,” Michael says softly. “What’s up?”

“How do I seem distressed?” Ashton murmurs, faint enough that only Michael could possibly hear him, words slurring. It’s the most he’s said since he’d come outside. He hadn’t anticipated speaking at all, had turned off the part of his brain responsible for making words come out. 

Michael makes an _I-dunno_ noise. “You just…” He does his best approximation of a shrug. “Well, um, you just do. I can’t explain it better. I can just tell.”

Maybe they really do have some spiritual bond, Ashton muses absently. Michael seems remarkably attuned to Ashton’s thoughts and feelings, not to mention his actual presence. It would explain why their hands fit so well together. It would explain why Ashton would retreat from anyone else requesting to join him, but when it’s Michael it just feels natural to accept. When it’s Michael, Ashton actually _wants_ him to stay.

“I know you like this stuff,” is what Ashton says, still kind of slurring. He doesn’t move, doesn’t open his eyes, just takes a deep inhale to unstick his teeth and tongue a little bit. Licks his lips. “The stars, and like, feeling small.”

“Don’t you?” Michael answers, soft and muted. 

Ashton shakes his head once. It rolls across the ground, and after he does it he wonders if Michael’s eyes are closed, too, if he can even see Ashton shaking his head, or if he can just _tell_. “Not really.”

“It’s comforting to me,” Michael says, as if Ashton doesn’t know that. “You don’t find it comforting? To know that nothing we do matters, in the grand scheme of things?”

“That’s not true, though,” Ashton answers quietly. “It does matter. I _wish_ it didn’t. I wish we really were stars, actual ones. But we’re people, so we have to be — moral, and intelligent, and useful, and good. It’s not enough for us to just give off light. Stars don’t do it on purpose, you know, they can’t help but burn. I wish — I don’t know.” He breaks off.

“No, go on,” Michael nudges. “I’m listening.”

Ashton sighs. “I wish…just _being_ was enough, but it’s not. When you’re a star, people love you long after you’ve died. When you’re a person…they’ll hate you long before.” He swallows. “And the star’s not even trying, is the thing, they win without even trying. While I’ll be trying my hardest, and I’ll probably be hated before I die anyway.”

Michael’s silent for a moment, and then he shuffles impossibly closer. Ashton doesn’t think there’s an inch on his left side that isn’t pressed against Michael, but he likes it, likes the idea that they’re puzzle pieces fitting in with each other, that maybe Ashton isn’t a complete person by himself, and Michael is the other half. Maybe that’s why Ashton is always so overstuffed; he’s too much of himself for one person, and he needs another. Maybe that’s what a soulmate is supposed to be — if Ashton cared to put stock into the idea of soulmates — someone to carry the extra pieces of you so you’re not always feeling weighed down by yourself, too heavy for your own skin.

Despite the extra weight he’s already been walking around with, Ashton knows that if Michael entrusted any piece of himself to Ashton, Ashton would carry it all the way to his grave.

“That’s one way of seeing it for sure,” Michael says lightly. “But you’re wrong. You won’t be hated. Not before you die, not after.”

“You don’t know.”

“I do know.”

There’s no use in arguing, not when Michael sounds so dead set on it. 

“Plus, there’s always going to be that one person who hates the stars,” Michael says, with just a hint of amusement. “And maybe one person’s going to hate you, but that’ll never outweigh all the people who will love you. If you can accept that stars are universally loved even though you yourself hate them, then you have to accept that _you_ are universally loved, even if — if one person hates you. Which I don’t believe will happen, by the way.”

Ashton breathes out. He’s never thought of it like that, and can already feel himself beginning to protest, but he doesn’t want to debate with Michael right now. It’s far too lovely just lying here for Ashton to want to start anything up. Pieces inside of Ashton are shifting around, clicking and twisting like gears into place; he feels like a puzzle himself, only it turns out that all this time he’s been put together wrong. No wonder he felt like too much of himself; the puzzle pieces had been jammed together all wrong, outside pieces turned inward, the sharper edges poking at Ashton’s insides, leaving cuts and bruises.

With a small sigh of relief, Ashton finally opens his eyes, carefully at first, blinking against the illumination from the street lamp. He tilts his head, but all he can see of Michael is the mess of colorful hair, though it looks almost black or grey in the pseudo-darkness. No point in opening his eyes anyway. Michael’s still here. The weight of his head on Ashton’s arm, the surety of his body flush against Ashton’s, and the warmth of their palms pressed together promise that.

“D’you think there’s ever too much of you for your body?” Ashton mumbles. “Like you wish you could skim some off the top? Or else you won’t all fit?”

Michael nods once, cheek brushing against Ashton’s shirt. He doesn’t say anything, and Ashton’s grateful. He can’t think of anything Michael might have said that would have been better than saying nothing. Michael seems to be reading his mind, or else he’s got hitherto undiscovered interpersonal skills.

“Well,” Ashton says weakly, “just so you know, if you need — I’d carry some of yours. Your extra…Michael. If you ever need.”

Ashton feels Michael smile against his arm. “You are,” he says. “Right now.”

Considering this, Ashton realizes that he doesn’t feel weighed down or empty enough to float away. “Hm,” he says, in a hushed tone. “So are you.”

Michael squeezes his hand once. “I always will. I’ll always — anything, for you, Ash.”

That’s a really big statement to make, a massive commitment that there’s no way Michael could honor, and yet Ashton feels himself grow warm all over, not least because the feeling is mutual. “Thanks,” he says. “Just this, for now.”

“Yeah,” Michael murmurs. “Just this.”

They both gaze up at the sky, and Ashton unexpectedly feels bad for all of the stars, because all they can do is burn and burn and burn until they die, without ever knowing the feeling of a cool breeze in the middle of the night, with Michael Clifford pressed up against Ashton, holding his hand like it’s where he belongs.

Maybe it is where he belongs. The thing about not being a star is, Ashton gets to decide.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr [@clumsyclifford](http://clumsyclifford.tumblr.com/) and always happy to talk <3 love you guys


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